I'm still using my ATV mostly despite having an ATV2 because the ATV2 interface is crap compared with the original model. Also, the latest update for the ATV3 interface has left the sorting broken on TV shows, not that it was ever great because the seasons aren't listed under the show but appear separately so I have 18 top level folders for Top Gear for instance whereas the original has one for Top Gear and then the episodes are all inside that in season order. Why they had to do this I don't know, but it sucks.

Hacked and running plex it would probably be fine though but I have all my stuff in iTunes so the standard non-hacked interface is what I use and it pisses me off. Not to mention the original has both component and HDMI so I can drive my Tv with component, and my projector with HDMI from the same box.

Sorry - just the mention of streaming and iTunes... doesn't go with AVIs...

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If the .avi files are 720p, the ATV2 won't play them properly (don't know about the ATV3 though, haven't tried it or heard anything about it), and if they're not you can add that video stream in an iTunes friendly container without having to convert it and then add it to iTunes by installing Perian.

A bit more hassle, and you're locked to iTunes, but it's a rather painless solution should you not be able to find an ATV2 that you can jailbreak.

2TB of AVI files I don't want to have to convert to an iTunes happy format...

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Depends what codec they are in. XBMC will play h264/x264 HD files just fine, but it will struggle with HD XVID's.
Remember the filename extensions such as .AVI, .MKV, .MOV etc. refer to the video's cointainer. The actual video may be in a few different codecs such as h264, XVID, DIVX, mpeg3, etc.
Apple TV, by default, will not play the .AVI and .MKV containers even though the file inside the container is in the right codec (h264). That's where XBMC comes in. XBMC will also let you play XVID, but since the ATV does not support hardware acceleration of that codec it will play it by software transcoding, which is slow.

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